Sunday, January 31, 2016

This is something I have been pondering for a while since the US
Constitution and its history make it clear that it does not condone
rebellion. Indeed the document is intended on establishing the rule of
law, which runs contrary to the insurrectionist doctrine.

Recap: Shays' Rebellion
was the event which led to the attempt to rework the Articles of
Confederation. Instead the Constitution came out of that movement with
its specific intent of "insuring domestic tranquility". The militia is
supposed to "to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections
and repel invasions": Laws of the United States which shall be made in
pursuance of the US Constitution.

The Constitution only mentions one crime: Treason. This is found in Article III, Section 3.

Treason
against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against
them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No
person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two
witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

Levying war is defined as:

The
assembling of a body of men for the purpose of effecting by force a
treasonable object; and all who perform any part however minute, or
however remote from the scene of action, and who are leagued in the
general conspiracy, are considered as engaged in levying war, within the
meaning of the constitution. 4 Cranch R. 473-4; Const. art. 3, s. 3.
Vide Treason; Fries' Trial; Pamphl. This is a technical term, borrowed
from the English law, and its meaning is the same as it is when used in
stat. 25 Ed. III.; 4 Cranch's R. 471; U. S. v. Fries, Pamphl. 167;
Hall's Am. Law Jo. 351; Burr's Trial; 1 East, P. C. 62 to 77; Alis. Cr.
Law of Scotl. 606; 9 C. & P. 129.

The
Constitution does not itself create the offence; it only restricts the
definition (the first paragraph), permits Congress to create the
offence, and restricts any punishment for treason to only the convicted
(the second paragraph). The crime is prohibited by legislation passed by Congress: 18 U.S. Code § 2381 - Treason. Congress has passed laws creating other related offences that punish conduct that undermines the government or the national security (See 18 U.S. Code Chapter 115).

In
many nations, it is also often considered treason to attempt or
conspire to overthrow the government, even if no foreign country is
aiding or involved by such an endeavour.
it should also be noted
that the Declaration of Independence is a historic document with no
legal authority under the US Constitution (Article VI).

Which take us back to the quote from Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 (1951):

“The
obvious purpose of the statute is to protect existing Government, not
from change by peaceable, lawful and constitutional means, but from
change by violence, revolution and terrorism. That it is within the
power of the Congress to protect the Government of the United States
from armed rebellion is a proposition which requires little discussion.
Whatever theoretical merit there may be to the argument that there is a
“right” to rebellion against dictatorial governments is without force
where the existing structure of the government provides for peaceful and
orderly change.”

I
would hold that the Bundy family and anyone else who would attempt to
recruit for the purpose of starting a civil war has engaged in the act
of Treason in accordance with this definition. 18 U.S. Code Chapter 115 - TREASON, SEDITION, AND SUBVERSIVE ACTS has variety of options if you are not willing to call incitements to rebellion treason.

Additionally Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment states:

No
person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of
President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military,
under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously
taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United
States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or
judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United
States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the
same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may
by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Very
few people are willing to do anything about the promotion of the belief
that people are somehow being patriotic and somehow following the
constitution when the insurrectionists act in their seditious manner to the
point of actual rebellion. There have been fewer than 40 federal
prosecutions for treason and even fewer convictions since the
Constitution was ratified. Several men were convicted of treason in
connection with the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion but were pardoned by
President George Washington.

Which is where the US differs from
other countries with a Common Law heritage. Yes, there have been
rebellions in England, Canada, and Australia, yet they do not have the
belief that there is somehow a "right" to rebellion (as they do not have
a concept of a "right to arms/guns"). Unlike the US, where the
largest rebellion, the Civil War/War Between the States, went without
too many of the instigators being hanged, rebellion has been punished
severely in other nations with a British heritage. Only recently has
the death penalty been abolished for treason in most Common law
countries.

What I find even more bizarre are the people who
somehow claim to be "conservative" while spouting seditious nonsense.
Especially since the term "conservative" is defined as:

a
political and social philosophy promotes retaining traditional social
institutions in the context of culture and civilization. Some
conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability
and continuity.

By that definition, insurrectionism
and supporting sedition are hardly conservative qualities, but this gets
into the bizarre notion of what is "conservative" in the United
States. If anything, true conservatism believes in the rule of law: not
the rule of the gun.

The problem is that like the Second
Amendment revisionism, there has been a neglect of the concept of the
rule of law in US society. The rule of law is that a nation is ruled by
laws rather than the capricious whims of individuals. It is part of the
Constitutional Structure under Article VI.

The rule of law is
expressed in these four principles:

The government and its officials and agents as well as individuals and private entities are accountable under the law.

The
laws are clear, publicized, stable, and just; are applied evenly; and
protect fundamental rights, including the security of persons and
property.

The process by which the laws are enacted, administered, and enforced is accessible, fair, and efficient.

Justice
is delivered timely by competent, ethical, and independent
representatives and neutrals who are of sufficient number, have adequate
resources, and reflect the makeup of the communities they serve.

This is also summed up in Article VI of The Declaration of the rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789:

The
law is the expression of the general will. All the citizens have the
right of contributing personally or through their representatives to its
formation. It must be the same for all, either that it protects, or
that it punishes.

The bottom line is that the US has
moved from the concept of the rule of law and somehow allowed the
absurdity that individuals can decide which laws they can follow. But
the reality is as I pointed out in my post Sic semper proditores (Thus always to traitors):

Thursday, January 28, 2016

This morning I heard an interview on MPR with MN GOP chair Keith Downey waxing rhapsodic over the glorious candidates available to conservative voters, including Donald Trump. Downey was enthused with the diverse attention that candidates like Trump have brought to the 2016 race, viewing it as favorable to his party.

I think Mr. Downey needs to have his head examined for his apparently deliberate confusing of the gawker attention given to train wrecks as distinct from genuine admiration and support. While it is the lunatic fringe most frequently turning out for caucuses and primaries, it is NOT the lunatic fringe on the right who most often turns out for the general election - as demonstrated in this Pew analysis of the 2012 election voters.

This analysis is based on 1,575 Republican and Republican-leaning
registered voters who are part of Pew Research Center’s
nationally-representative American Trends Panel, and who could be
matched to the national voter file. 1
The GOP primary electorate represented a relatively small share
of those who went on to vote in the general election. Of Republicans who
were verified to have voted in the general election, only 25% are
verified as having voted in Republican primaries or caucuses in 2012;
while 75% do not have a record of having voted in the primaries or
caucuses that year. 2

No one in their right mind would find anything wonderful in the 2016 cast of characters on the right, stuffed into what is now, at best, a gold-plated clown car (classy!) I'm sure Mr. Downey is well aware, for example, of the recent Pew Poll from a week ago which examined how the candidates are regarded.

Hillary Clinton had the best result among those polled to be a great president, followed by Donald Trump; however Turmp far and away had the highest percentage of poll respondents who thought he would be a TERRIBLE president.

Fellow extremist Ted Cruz got far fewer views as a great president, but also fewer negatives, while Bernie Sanders came in ahead of Cruz (barely) as a great president. Cruz, Sanders and Ben Carson all faced problems with respondents even knowing who they were, compared to either Trump or Clinton.

Looking at the same time frame, Pew Polling indicates Democrats hate Trump more than Republicans hate Clinton.

So while Clinton approval ratings may be declining, it is arguable that opposition to Trump is increasing far faster. And even among Republicans, the opposition to the extremist crazies, like Trump, Cruz, and/or Carson is high. Additionally, it's a pretty safe bet that Jeb hasn't a prayer of being the presidential candidate (now or ever, I would hazard).

From a Pew Poll the first week of January 2016:

While I expect Keith Downey to try to spin how crazy bad the candidates are on the right, the numbers are pretty clear. Donald Trump is not electable, and I would argue neither is Ted Cruz, or Ben Carson who has largely disappeared from popular radar; while the enthusiasm is far lower for any of the other more sane establishment candidates, it is also less likely that any of them would bring out the voters either -- perhaps even less so than with the lack of enthusiasm for Mitt Romney last time around.

Perhaps it is unkind of me to be so skeptical of Downey and the conservative candidates - never more so than when the straw poll this time around will be for real. Let me point out that the winner of the last presidential election straw poll was Santorum (who also won in the Iowa primary....eventually), while the convention winner for candidate later in the summer was Ron Paul. Somehow all of that irrelevance escaped comment from Mr. Downey, at least in what I heard of his interview.

Given their past track record, I would NOT expect much of what passes for the MN GOP caucus to have any relationship to the actual election in November.

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

The Constitution makes it clear that waging war on the US is treason (Article III, Section iii--it's the only crime mentioned in the Constitution!). 18 USC Chapter 115 tells you what laws you are violating and it was passed in accordance with US Constitution Article VI.

The Second Amendment does not explicitly repeal any of the main Constitutional provisions relating to treason and insurrection.

"The obvious purpose of the statute is to protect existing Government, not from change by peaceable, lawful and constitutional means, but from change by violence, revolution and terrorism. That it is within the power of the Congress to protect the Government of the United States from armed rebellion is a proposition which requires little discussion. Whatever theoretical merit there may be to the argument that there is a “right” to rebellion against dictatorial governments is without force where the existing structure of the government provides for peaceful and orderly change."

Monday, January 25, 2016

Kim Davis and the religious right wing nuts claim they have somehow
'won' in their fight to deny marriage civil rights to gay couples.
Losing is a series of decisions that the bigot beliefs of the religious
right don't entitle them to special privileges to hurt other people.

And
the other big 'win' came nearly two weeks ago; Kentucky is going to
have to pay, and pay big, for their bigotry under the false label of
religious freedom to discriminate and hate. From the AP and WCPO news, there is this little nugget underlining that loss for the right:

Kentucky to pay $1.1 million in same-sex marriage case
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A federal judge awarded a team of Kentucky attorneys
more than $1 million for their role in the landmark United States
Supreme Court case that struck down bans on same-sex marriage.
The state will have to pick up the $1.1 million tab.
In
2014, U.S. District Judge John Heyburn ruled the state's ban on
same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Attorney General Jack Conway refused
to appeal. But former Gov. Steve Beshear hired outside attorneys to
continue defending the ban.
The case, and others like it, made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which effectively legalized same-sex marriage last summer.
Jessica
Ditto, spokeswoman for Gov. Matt Bevin, a Republican who took office
last month and opposes same-sex marriages, said in an email Wednesday
evening that the governor's general counsel is reviewing the ruling.
"We
are pleased that the court did not award any bonus attorney fees and
eliminated certain fees and expenses that the court deemed unnecessary,"
Ditto said.
Federal law mandates that losing parties in civil rights cases pay the winning side's attorneys' fees and expenses.

Now the right likes to deny and lie when the facts are not on their side - as is the case here with who won and who lost.

If
you follow the lame logic of the evangelical crazies, those like
Michele Bachmann (who has been strangely silent for a while) or lunatic
fringie Sarah Palin, then the recent east coast blizzard that shut down
the coastal states with snow must mean God, aka Jebus, does not support
those who are anti-abortion.

Readers here may remember the
push-back in 2011 when Bachmann asserted, as an example of right wing
'magical thinking', a form of mental illness:

"I
don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the
politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said,
'Are you going to start listening to me here?'"

Hello
anti-choicers? Apparently God just slapped you down with his fluffy
white wrath in unmistakeable terms, clearly intending to block your
efforts. Not a peep out of Bachmann or Palin on the topic. Shutting down
early and being stranded on a turnpike is not 'winning', it is not an
endorsement of your position from God.

Friday, January 22, 2016

It appears that in the course of endorsing Donald “turnip-top” Trump,
the tea party bimbo Sarah Palin has attempted to blame President Obama
for her son’s PTSD, and his domestic violence charge. Palin claims that
Obama’s failure to respect the troops is responsible for her idjit son
Track’s violence towards women and chronic abuse of alcohol.

Instead, Palin appears to either be hoping very much that this claim
will slide by the crazy, ignorant base who doesn’t give a tinker’s damn
if Trump (and his supporters) are factually accurate or even vaguely
truthful. If not, her endorsement might quickly prove to be more of a
liability than a benefit to the eccentric right winger leader. False
claims about military service are one of the few things that might
antagonize Trump’s ignorant followers.

Here are the apparent problems with Palin’s claim:

1. there appears to be no credible diagnosis of PTSD from a health
professional re Track, and there is a huge questionmark over Track Palin
having been in combat;

2. there is no credible evidence that how a president feels or
doesn’t feel affects anyone having PTSD, re the subjective perception of
respect for the military;

3. Track enlisted in 2007, served for a year in 2008, BEFORE Obama
became president. If anyone is responsible for problems resulting from
Iraq, it would be Dubya, not Obama; and

4. the entire Palin clan is prone to drunken violence, without the
rest having served anywhere in our armed forces. It is a ‘Palin’ family
thing, not a PTSD problem. The family appears to be a bunch of armed
alcohol abusing louts, such that a more plausible explanation for
Track’s behavior is that he learned it at home.

From Politicalgates.blogspot.com we see that it appears that Track Palin
served a little over a week of active service under the Obama
administration’s first term of office; further that his prior year of
active service does NOT appear to have been in combat, from the
available description on his discharge papers. There have been vets who
have been in theaters of conflict in other countries WITHOUT having
themselves been in combat. I would further underline that nowhere (so
far) have I found Track Palin himself making the claim he was a combat
veteran, OR that he suffers from PTSD.

From Politicalgates.blogspot.com on how one checks combat service records, which indicates Track Palin is NOT a combat veteran, via the Veterans Disability blog:

That was the case today when speaking with a Veteran
about combat. His question was: “What exactly makes anyone a combat
Veteran?” Some may be quick to say that serving in combat makes you a
combat Veteran, but there is more to it than that.
The VA lists several different ways in which a Veteran can prove he or she was in combat.
· If you received a combat service medal, then you are considered a combat Veteran
· If you received hostile fire pay, imminent danger pay or tax benefits
· If you received military service documentation that documents combat theater
So, does serving in a foreign country automatically qualify me as
combat Veteran? Not necessarily. Even if you served in Iraq or
Afghanistan during the past ten years, it does not guarantee that you
are a combat Veteran.
How can you find out? Well, your DD-214 is a great place to start.
Your Discharge won’t automatically say that you were a combat Veteran
though…that would be too easy. Box 13 on more modern DD-214’s is where
they list medals, awards and ribbons. The VA does recognize certain
medals etc. as a qualifier for combat service. (That list will appear in
an upcoming blog.)
Also listed on your DD-214 is the type of pay you received. Box 18
would be the place to find out if you received Hostile Fire Pay, or the
Imminent Danger Pay. It is important to note that this can appear in box
13, though it is rare for it to appear there.

And a vet who has served in combat, and who has served with Track
Palin, is quite adamant he is not a victim of PTSD, nor have I found
anyone who served with him who substantiates that Track Palin was a
combat veteran or was symptomatic for PTSD.

…if this wasn’t about a 26 year-old grown man currently charged with fourth-degree assault, fourth-degree misconduct involving a weapon and interfering with a report of domestic violence.
Earlier this week, Track, who divorced his first wife in 2012,
was arrested over an incident at the Wasilla home he shares with his
parents. Police noted his current girlfriend had “bruising and swelling
around her left eye” and described Track as “uncooperative, belligerent,
and evasive with my initial line of questions.” A breath sample
registered his blood alcohol level at 0.189. In her conversation with
the police, Track’s girlfriend claimed he had threatened to kill
himself, and an unloaded AR-15 was found near the scene. Palin denied
using a weapon but told police “that they were spread throughout both
residences on the property.”
Track Palin was serving in Iraq as an air guard in the “Arctic Wolves,”
the Army’s 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, during his mother’s 2008
bid for vice president. He is routinely described in the press as a
combat veteran, though some within the veteran community, based on
Palin’s discharge paperwork, dispute his actual combat duty.

This entire family of Alaskan hicks (the adults anyway) act more like
trailer trash than pious folks demonstrating those wholesome family
values they give such annoying lip service. For example, we have
anything-but-chaste Bristol Palin, who took a ton of $$$$ to espouse
abstinence having yet another child out of wed lock, and brother Track,
who is dad to a daughter born 3 months after his wedding, (a fitting
repeat of his parents behavior – Track was also conceived before his own
parents’ engagement and elopement) and we have this past example of Palin family drunken brawling from less than a year and a half ago.

These are NOT ‘law abiding people’, these are not ‘family values people’
who present a clear understanding or example of how people behave
morally and ethically in a civil society. These are over-privileged
cretins with too little judgement and too much money, and a
mind-boggling capacity for ignorance and bad behavior, and a grotesque
degree of hypocrisy and a false sense of entitlement apparently.

What they are NOT is personally accountable — but apparently, on the
right, that’s just a requirement for OTHER PEOPLE. Another example of
right wing do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do morality, the kind that holds other
people to a higher standard than they hold themselves. How apt that
Palin endorses the oh-so-vulgar Trump; they are noisy, garish birds of a
feather in a gold paint gilded cage, hip deep in their own guano
baggage, a ‘yoooge’ ‘classy’ gilded cage.

As noted by multiple other individuals who are far better entitled to address the topics of the US military and PTSD:

‘Palin is using PTSD as an excuse to shift
blame away from her son’s domestic violence,’ Brandon Friedman, the
former digital media director for the Department of Veterans Affairs,
said in an interview with Huffington Post.

‘She never mentioned the actual victim.
She portrayed her son as the victim, but never talked about his
girlfriend, apparently crying and hiding under a bed because he beat
her.’

Friedman also said; ‘The fact is, veterans
who have PTSD are far, far more likely to harm themselves than they are
to harm others.’

As for Palin’s comment about President
Obama, Friedman said; ‘It’s ironic that people like Sarah Palin are in
the party of “personal responsibility” but as soon as someone in her
family is arrested for domestic violence, it’s Obama’s fault.’

Paul Rieckhoff, who heads Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, seemed to reiterate this statement, telling NBC News; ‘It’s not President Obama’s fault that Sarah Palin’s son has PTSD.

‘PTSD is a very serious problem, a
complicated mental health injury, and I would be extremely reluctant to
blame any one person in particular.’

He also said that he hopes Palin does not turn this into ‘a political chew toy in a political campaign’.

We've stood up for the reproductive rights of women affirmed by the SCOTUS for over four decades, in spite of the attempts to subjugate women, control our bodies, and deprive us of our right to autonomy and choice.

The efforts from the right attacking both contraception and safe and legal abortion continue, largely fueled by factual inaccuracies, unfounded emotion, and straight up manipulative propaganda, with copious amounts of violence and intimidation employed when the propaganda lies fail.

It's time to push back against unreasonable and destructive anti-abortion efforts; they harm all of us, not only women.

Thursday, January 21, 2016

s the 2016 election cycle ramps up, we see more examples of the
faulty morals and ethics of right wing propaganda, outright lies, and a
whole lot of denial instead of accepting responsibility. Let's review
some of the recent examples, particularly those relating to racism and
immigration issues.

We see it in S.C. Governor Nikki
Haley's rebuttal to the state of the union address by President Obama
earlier this month, which was really more of a rebuttal to Donald Trump,
making false claims about bigotry in our country's laws regarding race
and religion. We do in fact as a nation, from our earliest days, have a
pretty shameful history. It is quintessentially conservatives,
especially those of the tea party stripe, who promote revisionist
history and other fact-averse curricula in our schools, attempting to
throw out fact based education. It is the antithesis of accountability
and taking responsibility for past actions and for present proposed
actions that are bigoted, intolerant, and exclusionary, both on the
basis of race and ethnicity, and religion.

Not
surprising that Governor Nimrata Haley, nee' Randhawa, doesn't use her
actual name very often in her public life or political career, which
would be too 'ethnic' for many right wing voters. It is all too common
for people from her own background of Sikkhism, (which ignorant bigot
conservatives routinely confuse with Islam) to be referred to as 'rag
heads' on conservative talk radio, for example. These are the same
conservatives who claim that Indian American beauty pageant contestants are not 'American'
enough to wear a tiara and represent the USA. But there is just no
excuse for Haley to deny (or to be unaware) of the laws in this country
which banned people like her family from becoming citizens based on
ethnicity. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal doesn't use his real name
either, Piyuash, apparently for similar reasons of distancing himself
from his race/ethnicity.

Conservatives are swarming to support bigot peddling more than ever this election cycle, and always have. The Salt Lake Tribune hit the nail on the head:

Pitts: Nikki Haley living in Fantasyland

Nikki Haley's 44th birthday is this week. You would think her a little old for fairytales.

But
a bizarre, little-reported remark the South Carolina governor made last
week suggests that, age notwithstanding, Haley lives in Fantasyland, at
least insofar as American history is concerned. The comment in question
came the day after her Tuesday night speech in response to President
Obama's State of the Union address, in which she cuffed Donald Trump for
his strident anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant bigotry.

Haley
told reporters, "When you've got immigrants who are coming here
legally, we've never in the history of this country passed any laws or
done anything based on race or religion."

Or the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, whose title and intent are self-explanatory?

Or the Immigration Act of 1917, which banned immigrants from East Asia and the Pacific?

Or Ozawa v. U.S., the 1922 Supreme Court decision which declared that Japanese immigrants could not be naturalized?

Or
U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind, the 1923 high court ruling which said
people from India — like Haley's parents — could not become naturalized
citizens?

So yes, however you slice it, Haley is wrong and Haley is ignorant. But one wonders if Haley is to blame.

Americans,
the historian Ray Arsenault once said, live by "mythic conceptions of
what they think happened" in the past. And as school systems, under
pressure from conservative school boards, retreat from teaching that
which embarrasses the nation's self-image, as ethnic studies classes are
outlawed, as textbooks are scrubbed of painfully inconvenient truths,
as standards requiring the teaching of only "positive aspects" of
American history are imposed, we find those mythic conceptions
encroaching reality to a troubling degree.

Some
observers found that an astonishing thing for her to say as chief
executive of the first state to secede from the Union in defense of
slavery, a state that embraced segregation until forced to change by the
federal government. Others observed that any fair reading of Haley's
quote makes it pretty clear she was speaking only in the context of
legal immigration.

They're
right. The problem is, even if you concede that point, Haley is still
grotesquely wrong. She thinks no immigration laws have been passed
"based on race or religion"? What about:

The Naturalization Act of 1790, which extended citizenship to "any alien, being a free white person."?

Or the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, whose title and intent are self-explanatory?

Or the Immigration Act of 1917, which banned immigrants from East Asia and the Pacific?

Or Ozawa v. U.S., the 1922 Supreme Court decision which declared that Japanese immigrants could not be naturalized?

Or
U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind, the 1923 high court ruling which said
people from India — like Haley's parents — could not become naturalized
citizens?

So yes, however you slice it, Haley is wrong and Haley is ignorant. But one wonders if Haley is to blame.

Americans,
the historian Ray Arsenault once said, live by "mythic conceptions of
what they think happened" in the past. And as school systems, under
pressure from conservative school boards, retreat from teaching that
which embarrasses the nation's self-image, as ethnic studies classes are
outlawed, as textbooks are scrubbed of painfully inconvenient truths,
as standards requiring the teaching of only "positive aspects" of
American history are imposed, we find those mythic conceptions
encroaching reality to a troubling degree.

Haley was
born in 1972; US v Bhagat Sing Thind took place in 1923 affirming people
from India could not become citizens - just slightly less than 50 years
earlier. We're not talking ancient history here, by a long shot. Read
more about this case here but here is an excerpt to highlight the gist of the case and what resulted, courtesy of wikipedia:

Not
only were new applicants from India denied the privilege of
naturalization, but the new racial classification suggested that the
retroactive revocation of naturalization certificates granted to Asian
Indians, of which there were many, might be supported by the Court's
decision, a point that some courts upheld when United States attorneys
petitioned to cancel the naturalization certificates previously granted
to many Asian Indians. Some of the consequences of revoked naturalized
status are illustrated by the example of some Asian Indian land owners
living in California who found themselves under the jurisdiction of the
California Alien Land Law of 1913. Specifically, Attorney General
Ulysses S. Webb was very active in revoking Indian land purchases; in a
bid to strengthen the Asiatic Exclusion League, he promised to prevent
Indians from buying or leasing land. Under intense pressure, and with
Immigration Act of 1917 preventing fresh immigration to strengthen the
fledgling Indian-American community, many Indians left the United
States, leaving only half their original American population, 2,405, by
1940.
...the Asian Indian community finally succeeded in gaining
support among several prominent congressmen, as well as President
Franklin D. Roosevelt. The support culminated in the signing into law by
President Truman on July 2, 1946, of the Luce-Celler Act. This Act
reversed the Thind decision by explicitly extending racial eligibility
for naturalization to natives of India, and set a token quota for their
immigration at 100 per year.
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson
signed the Hart-Celler Immigration Act, which phased out the national
origins quota system first instituted in 1921. In 1965–1970, 27,859
Indian immigrants entered the United States. Immigration from India in
1965–1993 was 558,980

Neither Governor, Haley or
Jindal, are likely to be unaware of bigotry in law or common practice,
current or historical. So that makes it an intentional convenient
political lie in an attempt to minimize ADMITTING that this appeal to
bigotry is part and parcel of our conservative politics in the United
States. Jindal and now Haley are nothing but political tokens for the
right, selling out their origins in exchange for individual acceptance.
That makes them far worse than simple liars, and it gives the greater
lie to responsibility on the right for the reality of their bigotry. To
lie like this means they KNOW the problem exists, and they choose to
deny it rather than own it. Haley and Jindal, Trump and Palin, and those
who support them, tend to be racist bigots and also religious bigots.
Own it. Take responsibility for it. It is quintessentially
conservative. Expect to see it reflected in the 2016 right wing primary
election results.

Meanwhile, right wing media whore Ann Coulter tweeted that Trump should deport Nikki Haley..... asuch intolerance for those who are not white and of European descent among conservatives. Apparently among some far right conservatives at least, Nikki Haley is not "American" enough to be a citizen residing in this country?

Sunday, January 17, 2016

In the effort to squash turnip-top Trump rather than respond to Obama's speech following the state of the union address last week, Nikki Haley lied.

Apart from the fact that she appears to have done nothing to slow the Trump momentum among the stupid party voters, it is revisionist history to assert that the United States has not passed laws against anyone on the basis of race or religion.

Hello - anyone remember Jim Crow, so serious a blot on the history of Haley's own state of South Carolina?

Anyone remember the laws passed in support of segregation, including those which discriminated against Jews? We've had them.

In addition we have had laws in this country which precluded Latinos and Hispanics and people of Asian descent, notably Chinese, from owning property or holding office.

The notion that we should do something similar against Muslims has a long and ugly history in this country, one that is closely linked to conservatives historically and to conservatives in our modern era.

When faced with inconvenient or embarrassing facts, conservatives lie. They rewrite history, they deny, they pretend, to make themselves feel better, and then they try to justify it in the name of so-called patriotism.

Trump is appealing to the bigots on the right; own them, they are yours, they are you.

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Bill Clinton is an extremely popular former president, more popular than any recent past president and more popular than the current sitting president, Obama, and much more popular than any recent Republican president (either Bush), per insidegov.com. President Bubba is generally regarded as the most popular president of the past 25 years.

THAT makes Bill Clinton a major threat to the potential success of Donald Trump, as a major asset to Hillary Clinton. Since Bill cannot be elected to a third (or fourth) term as president, it is arguably the next best thing to elect him first spouse, putting him back in the White House in what would presumably be at the very least an advisory capacity.

As a substantive thinker and accomplished speaker, aka the Explainer in Chief, Bill by simply existing, by doing 'that thing he does', underlines the failings and shortfalls of Trump in every important category, including appearing presidential, without ever acknowledging Trump by name.

It is a weakness on the part of the thrice-married Trump to go after either of the Clintons for any issue relating to marital infidelity, given his own egregiously bad track record in that regard. While Trump's excuses for his infidelity has been that he was too busy with his work to be a good husband, it is a hard sell that he was busier, or had more obligations and responsibilities than the leader of the free world. And Bill Clinton has survived his public womanizing scandals just fine -- and those scandals have NEVER translated into his being unsympathetic to the advancement of gender equality.

UNLIKE Donald Trump, Bill Clinton has never been accused of domestic violence towards his wife or any other woman. And contrary to claims by Trump, Bill Clinton never 'lost' or was denied a license to practice law either. But Trump and his conservative supporters don't value facts in the slightest. They thrive on attitude over substance.

There is every possibility that attacking Bill Clinton to get to Hillary Clinton will backfire on 'the Donald', who is more of a cartoon character than a serious candidate.

The former president is the most resilient politician of this, and
probably any, era. He seemed doomed when the sex scandal involving a
White House intern erupted during his presidency. Republicans then
foolishly tried to remove him from office for lying about sex. That
backfired: Bill Clinton led his party to unusual gains in the 1998
midterm elections and left office in 2001 with a 66 percent approval
rating.

Even right wing nut not-news, Newsmax, home of crackpot conspiracy theories and fact-free rubbish, noted that failing right wing extremist candidate and former Arkansas governor and purveyor of quack diabetes cure, Mike Huckster-be, admits that Bill Clinton is extremely popular --- even among Republicans, a huge concession from the far right.

GOP candidate Mike Huckabee said Monday that he does not agree with critics who say Bill Clinton will be a liability for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, saying that even Republicans would pick the former president after seven years of President Barack Obama.
..."He's still popular with a lot of Americans. Frankly, after seven years of Obama, a lot of Republicans would take Bill Clinton back, warts and all, just because at least he understood how to govern. He was not the kind of person who utterly demonized the other side legislatively."

Meanwhile, Turnip-top Trump is broadly viewed as a huge - or 'YUGE' embarrassment, and never more so than while our closest ally, the UK, is debating banning Trump from visiting the country. The king of rubbish plans for border walls is being kept out - such poetic justice, such pure and unadulterated Karma.
In spite of his inexplicable emotional rather than substantive appeal to Republicans, (because there IS NOTHING substantive about Trump) it is unlikely that he will succeed in attacks against either Hillary or Bill Clinton using this lame and extraordinarily hypocritical appeal. I would expect that we will be seeing proxies for Clinton underlining this moral failing on the part of Turnip-top.

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

So, it seems that the Brits have turned their brutally sharp wit on the idjits in Oregon.

Yup, the rest of the world (or ROW, as Eddie Izzard called it) is laughing at them as well, for their hypocrisy and ineptitude. Consider the fools thoroughly skewered, like a kebab, roasted on the grill to a crispy turn.

AT them, not with them; it is important to make that point very clearly and sharply.

I give you an excellent piece from the esteemed Independent, of the UK.

Monday, January 4, 2016

So, we have the crazy Bundy bunch (nothing like the wholesome Brady bunch) out in Oregon, making asses of themselves to start out the new year. Think Progress has the best review of the details, here.
It is NOTHING like what the right would have you believe. Here is the
essential element omitted in most of the recent media coverage:

The
Hammonds set a fire in 2001 that ultimately burned 139 acres of BLM
land. The ranchers say they began it on their own land with agency
approval, but prosecutors say
they were in fact seeking to cover up illegal deer hunting on the BLM
acreage near their property. A second, much smaller fire in 2006 burned
another acre of BLM land during a “burn ban” imposed to allow agency
firefighters to combat a blaze caused by lightning.

What a bunch of maroons, who apparently are more likely to be turning blue with cold than any shade of red soon.

I liked the way the STrib described these losers in the location they chose to occupy.

"...the refuge area, which is remote even by rural Oregon standards."

So far, it doesn't seem as if anyone cares, at least not in a positive way.
As noted on FB by comedian Andy Borowitz, who has equally sharp wits and tongue:

OK, by now I've heard a lot of great names for the Oregon gang: "y'all-qaeda," "yee-hawdists," "yokel haram." But I think my favorite is "fucking idiots." http://bit.ly/1ODXgOG

And all hope of practical support seems to have failed from the right wing nut job militia sector; for example the Oathkeepers, who ran away scared from daddy Cliven Bundy, are actively discouraging their members and others from supporting Bundy Jr. aka Bundy light(in the sense department) by calling this latest farce the opposite of the Bundy Ranch, per the ever-vigilant (as distinct from vigilante right wing nuts), Right Wing Watch noted:

Oath Keepers Urge Members To Back Off Oregon Standoff: 'This Is The Opposite Of The Bundy Ranch'

After sons of rancher Cliven Bundy led armed militia members in occupying a
federal building in Oregon in protest of a federal court ruling
regarding two ranchers who were sentenced to jail time for arson on
federal lands, at least one “Patriot” group is urging its members to
“stay out of” the situation: The Oath Keepers.
The leader of the extremist Oath Keepers, one of the biggest players in the standoff at the Bundy ranch in Nevada, thinks that the Bundy brothers have gone too far. In a statement
issued on New Year’s Day, Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes said that
although he’s sympathetic to Dwight and Steven Hammond, the ranchers
convicted of arson, he wants no part in the Bundy sons’ takeover of a
federal wildlife refuge because the Hammonds had not asked for help.
In a video statement, Rhodes said that the Oregon situation is
“exactly the opposite of the Bundy ranch,” claiming that while militia
groups “went to Bundy ranch to prevent that family from being Waco’d,”
the current standoff is being “manufactured by potheads who want a
fight” and is no longer a “peaceful protest.” He added that the Hammonds
“were found guilty by a jury of their peers.”

It is a distinction without meaning or merit; the Bundy's have been properly found guilty plenty of times and are equally deserving of being behind bars for their lawlessness and looting of federal land too, which takes away valued resources out of ALL our pockets. A jury of peers is just as legitimate, neither more nor less, than any other court in the country.
The notion put forward by the Bundy's and the rest of the unraveling lunatic fringe is that they are entitled to something that does not belong to them, but rather belongs to US to YOU AND ME, as citizens and residents of these United States. The government is all of us; the people they are attempting to screw over are the rest of us, who are not holed up as trespassers and vandals indulging delusions of relevance.

Time for a good yawn, and for these morons to get a good kick in the seat of their pants, which appears to be the part of their anatomy they use to attempt thought, (a failed aspiration).

Turning up the heat on right wing lies

Opinions

“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”

― Isaac Asimov, "A Cult of Ignorance," Newsweek (Jan. 1980)

We stand with PP

past wisdom

"I don't want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it."Billy Graham - Parade (1 February 1981)

An astute observation from Bertrand Russell

"Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones."

Penigma is pro-feminism, pro-thought

Ignorance is a choice

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